UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones checked himself into rehab last week after news surfaced that he tested positive for cocaine. He didn’t stay very long.
Earlier this week, Jones’ mother Camille revealed in an interview with WBNG in New York that Jones only stayed one night in the rehabilitation facility but is continuing his “education” with the program.
“As far as treatment went. It was an overnight stay and then Jon, I believe, had the option of continuing,” Camille said. “I think Jon decided to continue with the education of it all.”
Camille said that Jones did not check into rehab because he has a cocaine problem, but more so in an attempt to curb his party-boy lifestyle.
“It helped Jon to stop in the middle of his tracks before it became something serious,” she said. “And then, you know, he just had to go to rehab for not so much for the cocaine, but it was for his lifestyle, his partying lifestyle after training. That’s why he wanted to get all the information he can as far as drug addiction and how it starts and some of the tell-tail signs, just to make himself a better person.”
According to Camille, Jones does not have a drug problem and simply “did something he shouldn’t have done” while hanging out with friends. That sounds more consistent with incidents like this than it does with the image Jones used to try to create of himself as a clean-cut guy who stays out of trouble.
Jones, who will be at the AFC Championship Game in Foxboro this weekend when his brothers Chandler and Arthur face each other, probably checked into rehab more for public relations than anything. If he really was just partying and had one slip-up, his previous statement about taking the treatment program “very seriously” is a lot harder to believe.
